Document

Detail

When the Secretary of State for Education commissioned the Munro review of child protection in June 2010, a central question was ‘what helps professionals make the best judgements they can to protect a vulnerable child?’.

This final report of the Munro review sets out proposals for reform which, taken together, are intended to create the conditions that enable professionals to make the best judgments about the help to give children, young people and families. This involves moving from a system that has become over-bureaucratised and focused on compliance to one that values and develops professional expertise and is focused on the safety and welfare of children and young people.

The Munro review began by using ‘systems’ theory to examine how the current conditions have evolved. The review’s first report ‘A systems analysis’ in October 2010 described the child protection system in recent times as one that has been shaped by four key driving forces.

The review’s second report, ‘The child’s journey’, published in February 2011, considered the child’s journey through the child protection system - from needing to receiving help - to show how the system could be improved. Extensive consultation on the reform areas set out in that report contributed to the development of this final report into a child-centred system.